Today our first iPhone game called “Baby Roulette” was published on the Apple App Store. The whole submission process was really fast. We submitted our app to Apple on Sunday afternoon, it went into review on Monday noon and today (Wednesday) morning it was published on the iTunes Application Store.
The game is very very simple, so maybe that’s one of the factors for a speedy release…
Why did we build an app like this?
Baby Roulette is a really simple and fun game for kids (mostly) to learn animal sounds. Our main intention for building this game is to get a simple and nice looking game quickly in as many App Stores as possible starting with Apple. Our next targets will be the Ovi Store , Android Market and Vodafone 360, which is still running the “Vodafone 360 App Star Competition“.
We mainly want to gain insights about different application stores regarding users, downloads, major downloading countries, devices and of course we want to practically go through the whole process of building an application/game and releasing and actually selling it on different app stores. This will help us to enlighten our clients and of course we are also blogging about it. So here are some first facts…
Some more interesting news announced at the Mobile Word Congress:
Google’s new strategy “Mobile First”
Google’s new strategy: “Mobile First” The company now focuses more on smartphones than on desktops. That means giving mobile top priority and launching new products first on mobile platforms before creating PC versions.
60,000 Android phone a day
Google’s Android launched a year ago and is now available on 26 different devices in 48 countries. 60.000 Android devices running this operating systems are now being sold on a daily basis … meaning about 5.4 million handsets per quarter, or 21 million per year. Apple sold 8.7 million iPhones last quarter and 25 million in 2009. Seems like Android is gaining ground, hopefully internal fragmentation will be taken care of (if that’s possible).
At MWC a number of the world’s leading telco companies including Vodafone, Orange, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, Deutsche Telecom, SK Telecom, Verizon, AT&T or China Mobile have announced the formation of an international alliance called “Wholesale Applications Community” (WAC) - to battle Apple.
They are aiming to build an open platform for mobile apps to all mobile phone users and want to solve the massive fragmentation problem.
They try to develop a common standard for applications within the next 12 months. The WAC is supposed to be a platform NOT an app store.
Of course, the app market is still a lucrative business and growing. Analysts at Gardner predict that the number of app downloads will rise to 4.5 billion (from 2.5 billion last year), yielding almost $30bn.
So far so good. But what does that mean, especially for us developers? Is this the right approach in the “write once, run anywhere” direction?
The good thing is that the group intends to use existing open standards (JIL, BONDI, W3C) and that will make it a lot easier for developers creating apps across multiple platforms. Besides developers then have only one single gateway to access a vast potential and international customer base. It also saves a lot of time and resources. And the new alliance has access to more than three billion customers.
Well, does this sound too perfect to you? There are still a lot of questions and even doubts, right? (more…)
Instead of a lengthy blog post here is just a wrap-up of quite interesting news announced at the Mobile Word Congress today:
Symbian joins Open Screen Project
The Symbian Foundation is joining the Open Screen Project, an industry-wide initiative led by Adobe to enable the Adobe Flash Platform across a broad range of devices. This means that Symbian will be integrating Flash 10.1 in future releases of the platform.
Ericsson launches eStore
Today, Ericsson unveiled an application store product for mobile operators allowing them to set up their own application store. The eStore is available in 25 markets worldwide, reaching more than 1 billion subscribers throughout more than 100 operator networks. It already has 30,000 free and paid apps and games. The eStore is backed by Opera who provides the client framework for widgets and applications across multiple channels and devices.
At Mobile World Congress 2010, Adobe announced today that it will bring Adobe Air to mobile devices, starting with Android and Blackberry phones.
At the moment you can build desktop web applications with AIR that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems, but soon it will be possible to create Android and Blackberry apps as well. These mobile apps will be able to store data locally on the phone, access other data on the phone such as photos, and be distributed as regular apps in the Android and Blackberry app stores. Not only that, but the same apps created with Flash developer tools will be exportable as iPhone apps (”Packager for iPhones“). The big picture is that developer can create applications once with Adobe’s developer tools and then output them as AIR apps for Android and Blackberry phones, native iPhone apps, or Flash apps on the Web.(more…)
Last year in October I wrote in a blog post about smart phone applications coming to cars. Today I read an article about Deutsche Telekom and tyre maker Continental joining this market as well.
They plan to put apps into all vehicles via an Android-based on-board computer. The prototype called AutoLinQ will be demonstrated at this year’s Cebit show. Inspired by the iPhone drivers can search for apps, download music, pick up news, check emails and answer them by using voice recording technology. The promise is: all without taking hands off the wheel or eyes off the road!
Deutsche Telekom said in a statement that the core functions of AutoLinQ include an online address book linked to the navigation system. Drivers can type in journey destinations on the computer at home or work before getting in the car, or via their mobile phone when out and about. As the vehicle is connected to Deutsche Telekom’s mobile network, drivers can call up information that tells them where the car is parked, or check whether the sunroof is open and close it remotely using their phone.
After mobile phones and cars we now will be able to access our mobile apps on TV - This really is exciting news:
At CES 2010 in Las Vegas Samsung announced the upcoming availability of of free and paid apps in Samsung’s Apps store, including apps for Televisions, Blu-Ray Players, Home Theater and Mobile Phones. The download service for TVs will be available in July 2010.
I found two interesting videos from Samsung’s press conferences:
As you can see in our Widget and App Store Wiki, a lot of phone manufacturers and operators have already joined the mobile applications battle or are planning their move in this direction. To promote their platforms and app stores and to attract new developers many of them have started competitions, usually with nice prizes to be won.
Have a look at the following currently ongoing competitions:
NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge PRIZE: global prize pool currently at $8.2 million USD in cash and licenses DEADLINE: November 6, 2009 (EMEA region)
The NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge is focused on driving the development and visibility of innovative location-based solutions (LBS) for wireless devices. From business applications to sports, travel and security, integrating the accuracy and richness of NAVTEQ digital map data facilitates the discovery of the next wave of LBS using dynamic positioning technology. Winners are chosen by a panel of distinguished judges in each of five regions (EMEA, India, South America, North America, APAC).
Registration for the LBS Challenge, EMEA Region has been extended to November 6, 2009. A completed solution is not required at the time of registration. The winners of the EMEA Region will be announced on February 14, 2010 prior to Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The global prize pool for this year’s competition is currently at $8.2 million USD in cash and licenses.
At the IAA in Frankfurt (Frankfurt Motor Show) in September 2009 BMW, Nokia and Parrot SA unveiled plans for bringing smart phone applications to cars.
“For software developers, this opens a whole new domain to sell their apps. For car makers, apps provide new ways to deliver infotainment and telematics services to customers. For motorists, apps allow them to enjoy their infotainment systems to the fullest, while paying only for the applications they want, thus saving them money. With apps so critical to the automotive market, companies are pushing approaches that benefit their specific goals. While the solutions shown at IAA were only concepts, they clearly reflect what will soon be on the market.” said Kevin Hamlin, analyst for automotive electronics at iSuppli Corp.
Sounds good? Yes. Where’s the catch? Doing it right!
On July, 31, RIM has officially launched their app store Blackberry App World 1.1 now also in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands with enhanced features, such as:
sorting options (newest, name, price, vendor, popularity and relevance),
filtering top 25 free and paid apps,
additional categories and sub-categories and
SD card archivingfor downloaded and purchased apps (customers can now reinstall deleted apps from their memory card). (more…)
Yesterday, I came across a very interesting article about the mobile applications market and its future outlook.
“Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet,” said Ilja Laurs, founder and chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent mobile application store. “They will peak at around 100,000 by the end of the year. That will be a tipping point and after that there will be a gradual fall in the rate of development. The full blossom will come in ten years and mobile apps will become as popular as websites are today with consumers.”
But he also warned developers for rushing into this market blindly: “The reality is that this space is only so big and only able to support so many people. Unfortunately the overhype that goes with [Apple's] App Store is what has driven so many to rush to develop for the market. It is fashionable to do apps and every media outlet tells you apps are cool. But the economics are a different story. The ratio of those developers who will fail is about 90%; they will simply not make a return on their investment or make a good enough living at this”. (more…)
We have been eagerly awaiting download stats for Panda Route, our travel planner widget, ever since it passed QA and was published in the Nokia Ovi store.
By the end of last week Nokia finally launched its reporting tool for the Ovi store. Now publishers can measure their application’s success (or failure). The tool is pretty basic, yet very useful. It shows you the amount of downloads and/or purchases - sorted by devices and countries - and your estimated revenue. I am sure there will be more reporting options coming out soon.
The process of publishing on Ovi is pretty straightforward: you create a new content item, upload a file (the widget package in our case), then you define which devices the content is compatible with and submit it to Nokia’s Quality Assurance department. After about a week or so your content will have passed (or failed) QA and goes public after a few more days. A couple of days later you can then see statistics about your content item - download numbers being the most interesting ones for us (our widget is free), but of course also gained revenue etc. (more…)
Our Panda Route Travel Planner widget has made it to Nokia’s Ovi Store. The basic idea behind the widget is that you have all your important travel data with you while you are on the go. It works pretty easy: before you start your journey, you enter all the details of your upcoming trip that you need to remember (e.g. airline, flight times, hotel address, rental car reservation number etc.). Then the widget shows you the current step of your journey with all the needed information depending on the current time. On your Nokia N97 home screen this information will be shown too. So you have access to this information without interaction with the application and even when not connected to the Internet.
We also integrated a Twitter feed matching the location of your upcoming destination. It is a great source for any kind of information, such as events, news, things to watch out for or people nearby; and you know what is going on there before you arrive.
The widget is free and available for Nokia N97. So, before you start your next trip, try it out and let us know what you think!
The ads for Nokia’s N97 have started to appear and in Germany as it will hit the first shelves by June 18th at 5 pm in four selected cities. With the release of the N97 our travel planner widget “Panda Route” will be launched, too, and we are pretty excited about it!
Widgets are now becoming more and more popular on mobile phones and we think it’s gonna change web- and application development quite a bit too. Nokia’s new touchscreen phone comes with several widgets already pre-installed, but you can also download more from the Ovi store. With this step Nokia is especially addressing web developers. Recently they launched new mobile development tools that take advantage of three of the world’s most popular software development environments used by web designers and developers.
“These new Nokia WRT tools open up the mobile development market to more than 10 million web developers and creative professionals worldwide who work with these widely used development environments every day to create web applications and content,” said Craig Cumberland, Director of WRT Tools and Technologies, Nokia. “These WRT plug-ins enable the easy creation of feature-rich widget applications for the enjoyment of mobile consumers around the globe, providing new horizons to untold numbers of individuals and organizations seeking to extend their web content and Internet presence into the mobile space.” Nokia says.
Today Nokia has globally opened their long-awaited Ovi Store to an estimated 50 million Nokia device owners across more than 50 Nokia devices including the forthcoming N97.
To all Nokia device owners out there: open your Nokia device browser and go to store.ovi.com. Now you can personalize your Nokia phone by downloading apps, ringtones, widgets, games, videos etc.
The mobile client is available in English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish and supports operator billing in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom. Globally, credit card billing is available through the mobile application and the mobile website. On the N97 the store application is pre-installed, same for all other new devices that are supported. (more…)
We were invited by Nokia to attend their Hackathon Widget coding contest alongside the Nokia Developer Summit in Monaco/Monte Carlo (we mentioned that earlier). It was a great chance to get to know many interesting people in the mobile development space and especially in the area of widget development based on Nokia’s Web Runtime (WRT).
The hackathon contest was all about implementing ideas of customers in a 24h period and we implemented an idea for a travel planner widget by Bruce Hopkins from Joplin, Missouri, USA. The basic idea was to create an application to collect all travel related information, such as flight numbers, times and car rental reservation info of a trip to have that handy while you are on the go so you would not have to mess around with printed paperwork. But let’s tell Bruce the whole story (and myself a bit about PavingWays and the contest):
Related to one of our new services, called Panda Route, which is a travel diary service (with a planning part), we created the Panda Route WRT widget - (more…)
On Tuesday the Nokia Developer Summit started. The conference was opened by Rob Taylor, Head of Forum Nokia. At the beginning he showed us a demo of a coming service (powered by qik) where consumers will be able to share videos live from their mobile devices.
The topic of this conference was mainly Nokia’s Ovi Store, which will launch this month. 500 people were at the event, mainly developers from all over the world, but also bloggers, press, analysts, students etc.
Yesterday we attended the Mobile Monday in Frankfurt. The topic was Mobile Internet and Applications. Forum Nokia was one of the sponsors of this event. For us it was a good accommodation for the upcoming Nokia Developer Summit next week in Monaco.
The first presentation was held by Jarkko Tolvi from Forum Nokia. He introduced Forum Nokia, an important platform for developers of mobile services. Forum Nokia offers them a wide range of resources to help them design, build, test, certify, market, and sell or promote their applications, content, services, or Web site to mobile users. It’s the worlds biggest mobile developer community with over 4 million members.
Arnaud Caigniet from Opera was next. The topic of his talk was “What can the industry do to see ‘One Web’ everywhere?”. With statistics Arnaud showed that the mobile usage has grown and the growth still continues. The most growth in mobile usage Opera sees in Indonesia, China, Russia and India.
During this summit in Monte Carlo on 28-29 April, Nokia is holding a “N97 24-hour Hackathon” competition. I am one of 10 developers selected by Forum Nokia who is gonna hack together a Web Runtime (WRT) widget for the home screen of the new Nokia N97.
The Hackathon session will be streamed live and I will be in action 24h competing face-to-face with the other developers. At the end of this Hackathon, all widgets will be judged by a panel of experts from Nokia Forum & Nokia’s N97 team. The winning designer will get a Nokia N97 pre-loaded with the app. Also, the next to cash prizes, “[...]The winning widget will also be awarded premium spotlight status on the main page of the new Nokia Ovi Store, which is opening in May. It will be free to download in Australia, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. The apps which come second and third at the Hackathon judging panel will also get spotlight placement on the sight.[...]” (Source: Nokia).
Nokia is going through quite some replacements on the widget and content distribution front these days: Their WRT Widgets will replace formerly well received WidSetsâ„¢ and maybe other apps too, and Nokia’s new Ovi store will replace their current offering called Mosh.
I am really looking forward to the event - not just because I can spend some exciting days in Monte Carlo :), but also because it’s a great opportunity to get in touch with many people in the mobile and mobile web area since a long time.
During its first BlackBerry Developer Conference co-Founder and co-CEO of Research in Motion Mike Lazaridis unveiled plans for an online application store for its smart phones. The store will launch in March 2009 and will include both an online and on-device component giving 20 million BlackBerry users on all platforms the opportunity to find and download add-on applications for their specific phone models. RIM is working with PayPal to build the payment system for the store.
“A new online application storefront and a new on-device application center will help application developers and carriers reach millions of BlackBerry smartphone users worldwide and will provide consumers with greater choice, enhanced application discovery and an easy method for managing installation, upgrades, and purchases.” (source: press release of RIM)
In December this year developers can begin submitting their applications. The storefront will allow them to set their own prices for applications. Developers will get 80 percent of the revenue generated from their application.
Today our first iPhone game called “Baby Roulette” was published on the Apple App Store. The whole submission process was really fast. We submitted our app to Apple on Sunday afternoon, it went into review on Monday noon and today (Wednesday) morning it was published on the iTunes Application Store.
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